Thursday, August twenty-eight, 2008.

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I'm Shannon O'Donnell.

Making headlines today:

Imperial Holdings CEO Hubert Brody anticipated another weak performance for the financial year ahead, as consumer spending was expected to continue weakening, markets remained challenging and conditions stayed tough.

However, he pointed out that the company was "well poised for the turnaround in the consumer cycle over the next year or so".

Despite increasing revenue 3% to 56-billion rand in the year ended June 2008, the diversified logistics and automotive group reported a decline in headline earnings from continued operations of 49%, to 1,14-billion rand.

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Increased government spend and Eskom infrastructure expenditure is expected to continue driving sales growth for electrical wholesaler ARB in the future.

The wholesaler reported that despite the power crisis in South Africa, the electrification of rural areas would continue unabated. Specifically the electrification of schools, clinics and low-cost housing.

CEO Craig Robertson said that parastatals, some of which are already customers of ARB, would be a target focus for the future, as spending from these would become vast.

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Impala Platinum confirmed on Wednesday that a worker has died at the company's Number 10 shaft on Tuesday night after a fall-of-ground incident.

Implats spokesperson Alice Lourens said that production at the shaft was ongoing.

However, she explained that the worker was a development rock drill operator and the company had stopped on-rig development while the DME and Implats were conducting an investigation.

She could not confirm when the investigation would be completed.

Also making headlines:

HSBC is named as Project Mthombo's financial adviser
CPIX hits a fresh record of 13%
Altech Autopage Cellular is to distribute Neotel's products
Former Booysendal shareholders threaten a dispute with Mvelaphanda Resources
Gold is to scale new peaks as mining costs grow
And, the South African Competition Tribunal cancels the BHP Billiton hearing

In political news:

Barack Obama wins the Democratic nomination for the presidency
Israeli peace pioneer Abie Nathan dies at age 81
Ghana climate talks advance on saving forests
And, the Presidency says there is no Zimbabwe trip for Mbeki

That's a round up of news making headlines today. For more on these and other stories, visit engineeringnews.co.za, miningweekly.com and polity.org.za